Have any of you lot read WWZ? It's a book by Max Brooks, who, coincidentally enough, is the son of Writer/Director/Actor Mel Brooks. For a detailed summary, here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z.

For those who want the back-alley, cheap Cliff Notes version, WWZ is a story told through the perspective of a U.N. Journalist who interviews people all over the world who's tales of terror, heartbreak, and, although few and far between, triumph, tell the reader the hell that was this war for survival against itself.

Although it does not tell how the "Plague"(or as it was called in the beginning "African Rabies") started -not that any movie/book/game that I ever watched/read/played ever went into any real detail how the shit hit the fan- it does go into detail as to how the world -from Russia, India, and China to the U.S., Canada, France, and even Israel- were impacted and how they reacted at the first outbreak to the eventual last stand and beyond. In case your curious, the win factor for this book is maxxed the fuck out. Read it, the Gods of Awesome demand it.

In any case, I was kinda curious as to if it was possible to make a crossover between HP and WWZ without bringing suck to untold new heights. WWZ started in the late eighties, so I think it might make the timelines compatible, but how certain situations would play out -like how billions of zombies would affect the magical world- would be up to the writer.

Your thoughts?

 

I think most everyone here has read that but while there were awesome parts in it, shit like the Battle of Yonkers was just painful for me to read the stupid glared so much. I remember reading this thing a Marine Sergeant wrote up once that was like five pages long explaining every inch of dumb in the whole scene and exactly why it was dumb and how it could have been done better. If I can find it again I'll have to put it up here.

 

I don't know I've been a vocal pusher for Zombie crossover.

Inferius is a stupid version of a zombie in the potter verse.

If a proper zombie outbreak occured in the potter verse where regardless of magic, zombies rampaged in numbers it would make a good story.

I mean thats the premise of all apocalyptic zombie scenario. Regardless of all technology and military might it becomes uncontrolable and chaos ensues.

I can just see a hoard of zombies mowing down diagon alley, while people either try and apparate away after beign bitten, or tryign to fight them off with fire and stupefies while they still come at them.

I await your zombie crossover. Maybe a twist of magic doesn't work on zombies or even zombies are attracted and more aggressive around magic as a plot twist.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed both Polarity and The Shocker! Legit? mostly because of the Zombie element, while not following the comics at all. It stands to reason that a well done Potter zombie fic would be even more enjoyable.

 

I actually did read an HP/Left 4 Dead crossover once, it was a while ago though, I'd have to look it up.

 

Well, there's a HP/ResidentEvil crossover I posted in the almost rec'ed thread, called Tyrant. It's not quite at the 'zombie outbreak' point yet, but there might be a chance it goes in that direction.

I would read any legit Zombie-Apocalypse-HarryPotter story just because it's got awesome potential.

 

I think I know what you're talking about. I can't remember if he was looking back and reminiscing, or if that was what he was thinking as the shit was going down.

What got me was where the concept of actual zombies seemed to not exist in the book, almost at all. I think it was simply denial; they just couldn't come out and say "Holy Fuck! It's a metric fuck-ton horde of zombies! Let's lay that ass out Muthafucka!" The concept seemed just too terrifying for the general populace to comprehend, like saying zombie would bring out demons or The Rapture or something into being that would just cripple the sheep mentally.

It's not a normal zombie story, plain and simple. In most movies and games, the shit has already hit the fan, and "THERE", when suck is at max capacity, is where the story begins. Or, like in Night of the Living Dead, it details the beginning, but nothing else.

In WWZ, Brooks details EVERYTHING.

Spoiler

From where it starts -going through how they initially think it's some strange disease, explaining how it evolves into where eventually it becomes obvious that these people are fucking dead- to the middle -when all hope seems to be lost and everybody seems to just fuck off and die or go completely batshit (like those people who started acting like zombies)- until finally the end, where things seem to settle a bit. The "War" never truly ends; there is that ever looming cloud, that, at any moment, they could reappear at any moment, en masse, and bring hell back to humanity. All the while, these stories that are being told by the Survivors are filled with the absolute horror of the situations that they are in.

That crazy shit that happened in Israel, where they open the borders to the Gaza Strip, the story with the indian general, the cannibals in Canada, or the one with the rogue chinese ballistic nuclear sub; these tales are just fucking nuts.

In a way it's kinda similar to HP, in that the general people were terrified of Voldemort(his name illiciting terror in those around one brave enough to invoke it) or how the ministry(namely fudge but you get the idea) tried to deny that he had returned. It's hard to grasp the concept that the comfortable world they were living in was literally being eaten away by unspeakable horrors, that did not die when you shot them(head-shots not withstanding). The masses will always try to avoid the trouble, instead of handling things head on. Their ignorance was what was really killing them, the zombies were simply doing it literally.

...Crap. I think I ran off into a tangent. Damn my miserably short attention span!

By the way, was that Left 4 Dead Fic worth anything? If it is, and you do come across it again, please post it. Curious as to how that worked out.

 

I can't speak for the written segment itself, but the audio book version of that segment (read by Mark Hamill, by the way) was fucking awesome.

 

World War Z could fit pretty well if you do it right, especially in Max Brooks' format: stand-alone episodes each chapter detailing say, how Voldemort lost control of the Inferii or whatever.

And it can build lots of tension if you take it slow and reveal changes and who lived or died in pieces- like LOST when they fed us the identites of the Oceanic Six and what happened to everyone else piecemeal.

And it would be a great co-op fic. All you really need to discuss is who lived or who died and where things generally stand, and if someone fucks up the story could be steered away from that area. It's not like there isn't a whole Wizarding World out there to explore.

 

Hmm. I dunno, I'm not sure that the Inferi idea would work, but that's mostly due to the fact that I'm unclear as to whether or not they can replicate like your garden variety zombie, or if they just kill you and you stay dead. If they do it the normal zombie way, then that sucks shit in reverse while floating tits up down a river of shit. The muggles would be lighting those bastards up with lead, failing to realize that fire seems to be their only weakness.

I was thinking more along the lines of regular Zed just overwhelming things like they did in the book. The AK, obviously would be beyond fucking worthess, as they are well and truly dead. Pretty sure the other unforgivables would also share the same level of effectiveness.

With the exception of book six, in the cave filled with the damn things, I don't remember there being any other mention of Inferi in the series, though it has been awhile. Regardless though, having either Zed or Inferi come at you in large numbers, through windows, doors and walls, chasing you down streets...slowly...Hmm, forget that last one. Anyway, hogwarts would still be safe, as there were castles used effectively in the book.

You know what? Fuckit. Make it a perfect mixture, have BOTH, Zed and Inferi, Bring the Oh Shit-O-Meter to "Sweet Mother of Christ! We're Fucking Doomed! DOOMED!!!"

Yeah...I likes that one.:awesome

 

Well I've never read World War Z, but trust me - the idea for a zombie apocalypse Harry Potter story has come up many times for me. Hell I wrote thirty thousand words of one...

Anyways, I'd like to see some good HP ZombieApocalypse fics - the current crop (Let's see... one Left 4 Dead crossover with two chapters, some barely readable Resident Evil crossovers...) leaves me yearning for some more, that's for sure.

 

In the HP universe you can justify anything, some sort of obscure magic could have affected them or Voldemort could have messed up a ritual or fuck, be like Romero and don't tell us how or why he's gotten away with it, you could write it a hundred different ways and you have flexibilty because you can leave open hints.

Although if such a war happens there must be some sort of Wizard-Muggle intergration Inferii vs Brooks' Zombies would be awesome, till they get ripped apart. He'll it way even force to jump to dark magic, especially if they can reuse zombies whose heads have been blown off.

 

I could see Voldemort using Inferi to protect his stronghold from zombies. You know, using dead bodies to fight other dead bodies as to not risk his own living forces.

Yeah, Voldemort would easily survive a zombie apocalypse.

I'm not sure how the light side would fare, though.

 

No no, I don't mean in the book or another novel, I mean an actual Marine Sergeant I know on a different forum went in wrote up a summary of everything that was wrong with the Battle of Yonkers and why any real military would have hung themselves in shame for being a part of it.

Also surprisingly enough the fic was actually fairly decent, as I recall Harry was on a business trip with his family to America because they couldn't get a sitter in time. They locked him in the hotel room they were staying at when the virus broke out, he ended up killing Petunia and Dudley with a frying pan.

 

I'm pretty sure Zed would get killed in droves, but the reality of it is that there would be more of them. Six billion folks, or around abouts thereof; by the books end a little over half had gone the way of Zed.

Factor in a magical persons core, or energy -or what the fuck ever it's called- has a limit, and they'd be fucked after an hour or two of cutting curses. I refuse to believe that a wizard has the unlimited energy cheat; if that was the case, fuck that shit. It'd be like having a little wooden machine gun all but glued to your hand.

I dunno...pretty sure one of the key ingredients for an Inferi is it's soul. Zeds dead, man, Zeds dead. No soul, means no pass go, do not collect wizard brains, or those of that delectible muggle infant down the way.

Thats a pretty bad ass idea. I imagine eventually the Lighter side of things would adapt to this idea, regardless of how distasteful it might seem.

Hmm...that brings up a thought. Would the blood wards save Harry? The books did say it prevented those that meant to cause him harm from entering, and I'm pretty sure wanting to eat his face classifies as harm...

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Ah. Gotcha. It did seem kinda stupid, but it did go with the flow of the story. Humans are so fucking retarded sometimes.

Death by frying pan. There's Irony in there somewhere, I can feel it! You remember what FF database it was on?

 

I thought that was the whole point of the battle, that the politicians shouldn't be plan a military campaign? In fact, the entire thing is written from the perspective of a Marine whose constantly criticizing all the arrangements they made. All google your Marine guy but he pretty much wasted his time, Max Brooks beat him to it.

 

Moved to appropriate Section. >_>

 

I've got a copy of the zombie survival guide by Max Brookes beside me atm. It's fucking golden.

I might try to come up with something.

 

I'm done with exams so I might just do a one-shot... after I get done with my other outlandish ideas.

 

Having just read WWZ not a week ago, I can say this is false. I don't even know how you can think it started in the eighties.

WWZ started right around when the book was published--2006 or so. That much is very clear, with modern political figures and current events being frequently mentioned. But they have some technology working by the start of the war that we haven't even gotten to work yet, like the Land Warrior concept, more advanced space tech and a laser that can shoot down enemy missiles, so it might be slightly AU.

The war itself lasts roughly ten years, and the UN interviewer is collecting this information about ten years after the war's end. That makes the book technically set somewhere in the late 2020's.

You could make it start in the eighties... maybe. If it's taking place in Britain then you might not have to change anything to do with the American political situation, and if it's primarily dealing with wizards then the technological aspect could be ignored. But since WWZ is a global event, by making it focus solely on British wizards I think we'd be losing a very large part of the whole story.

EDIT: Well, not slightly AU, I guess. Not if zombies have existed throughout human history, as the last part of the Zombie Survival Guide outlines.